As a coach I encourage my clients to look a few years into the future, decide on where they want their business to go, and then figure out how to get there.
Set the goal, figure out some way-points and then work steadily until you have achieved the outcome you want.
It’s good advice, because most small businesses and freelancers don’t plan enough. They stumble forward, month by month, hoping things will work out.
So yes, I think every freelancer and entrepreneur should have a plan and stick to it.
Now for the kicker – Your biggest successes probably won’t be part of your plan at all.
Viagra was not the result of a plan to create the world’s greatest erectile dysfunction drug. Researchers were actually working on a blood pressure pill when they came across a rather interesting side-effect. Viagra’s discovery was accidental.
Alexander Fleming didn’t discover penicillin, the world’s first antibiotic, by spending years looking for a drug that killed bacteria. He discovered it because of an accidental cross-contamination between two petri dishes in his laboratory. He screwed up, and found penicillin as a result.
